Sue leaps, ears ringing, the gunshot coming from the roof of the Expedition above her head. Before she can tense up it happens again.
On reflex-at the moment, she has nothing else left in her arsenal-she throws the car into drive and hits the accelerator. The Expedition lurches to life. Something bumps off the roof and the man on her hood is gone. Sue takes the wheel and steers it back onto the road, looking in the rearview mirror but not seeing anything back there. He's just gone. The road ahead of her leading into Winslow is empty.
She drives fifty yards up the road, her stomach twisted backward on itself, the faint lights of Winslow beginning to prism in her eyes. When the road gets too blurry to drive she stops again, crosses her arms over her chest, and for a long time she just sits there holding on to herself and trembling. The dome light is still on and when she reaches around to switch it off with a clumsy, shock-stiffened arm she notices the kid sprawled across the backseat.
There are two bullet holes through the kid's eyes. Wisps of smoke are still floating from the sockets. Sue sees this but it doesn't register with her immediately. She is filled with the simultaneous urges to scream, throw up, and squeeze her own eyes shutBut she sublimates all of these urges, puts them aside, with the single thought of Veda waiting for her at the end of the line. Veda the punctuation mark, the only good reason, the final and absolute meaning in her otherwise iffy existence. Veda, whom she is prepared to kill for, whom she'll die trying to get back. The simplicity of the thought steels her, helps her focus, until it is the only thing she knows.
Veda.
Baby.
I'm coming. Mommy's coming. I promise.
And she drives the rest of the way into Winslow.